Monday, November 25, 2013

On New Years Day 2013, I swam one mile and was so excited about it that I set a goal of swimming two miles on New Years Day 2014, and foolishly made the mistake of publicly stating my goal on a forum such as facebook. Then along came a stem cell transplant at the Mayo Clinic Rochester for the months of January and February, and I was out of the pool as a precautionary measure against infections for months.

On June 24, I was able to resume swimming, and was pleased to get in a one-mile swim 10 days later on Independence Day. I have been trying to keep the routine up, and got in another one-mile swim last week.

Today, I went to the pool, planning to do a 1200 meter swim, but after I got into the swim, I decided, "Hey, I'm here at the pool, the swimming is going pretty good, I'm going to have 1200 meters (about 6 furlongs or 3/4 of a mile) in anyway, I've got an available time slot and the pool isn't busy on a weekday (could be busy on a holiday) - why not go ahead and get in my two mile swim a few weeks early?" So I did.

Monday, November 4, 2013

I am continually humbled by the number of people who ask how things are going on the cancer front, or otherwise check up on me, and pray for me. I gave a blood sample a couple of weeks ago, and got the results and saw the cancer doc last week. The M-spike (measure of the cancer)
has remained stable at 1.0 over the past two months, and has increased by only
0.3 from the reading 6 months ago in April. This means that the cancer is
increasing at a much slower rate that it appeared to be over the summer. I will
go back for another local test and data point in late December, then go back to
see the friendly folks at Mayo in late January. Although the
cancer doc will never make such predictions, I could see this going another
couple of years before resuming chemo if all continues to go on the current
course, although I am hoping and praying for much more time than that.

Bottom line is that for now I am feeling good, off chemo, and not scheduled
to go back onto chemo anytime soon. Further, the cancer does not appear to have done any damage to the body (bones, organs, etc.). As my pastor's recent sermons from the Sermon on the Mount have
reminded us, anything beyond these things is not something to worry about today. We have
done all we can, and trust the rest to God.